


chain reaction

by 99yeon (orphan_account)



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-24 20:34:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14961710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/99yeon
Summary: “Do you?” Nayeon murmurs against her lips. “Do you really care more for your machines than me?”





	1. babylon

Sana smells like grease all the time. She’s long given up on scrubbing the oil completely from her face, hair and clothes. There’s no reason to, anyway - at this point it’s become a hallmark of her brand, a testament to her status as a skilled inventor. How good is she if she doesn’t spend all her time in her workshop, anyway?

 

 _A true genius would have her inventions work the first time_ , Jihyo told her once, undoubtedly frustrated by Sana’s penchant for disappearing into her workshop for days on end. She can’t help it – there is always so much to do, to tinker with, to busy herself with that she can never escape the grasp of her work. She picked the right profession to go into – she’s been like this since she was old enough to use a soldering iron.

 

Her desk is messy and disorganized, half-completed blueprints pinned to the board, loose leaf papers splattered in ink from toppled inkwells, various gadgets and amalgamations scattered around for Sana to toy with as she works. Most of these gadgets were crafted in hours, with few to no plans, just Sana and her gears and engines and her hands. They usually end up losing functionality in weeks as their gears rust and Sana loses interest in maintaining them.

 

As much as Sana likes proving her friend’s little bits of wisdom wrong, Jihyo is right about one thing. Devices made with little purpose have little use – most of the toys on Sana’s desk serve a rudimentary function and stay that way. She doesn’t mind, though. Not everything has to be something grand and planned out. Some things only serve to keep her occupied as she works on other things.

 

Right now, she tinkers with a clicker in her left hand, a pen in her right. The device is simple enough, a cube of metal that makes a satisfying clicking sound when Sana presses her thumb to the rounded gem attached to it. The gem was a gift from Tzuyu, from her expeditions in the New World. (Sana is almost certain that it was given to spite Sana’s stubborn belief that “The New World is a meaningless place!”) It’s _too_ good at its job, though, and Sana ends up paying more attention to the toy than the plans in front of her.

 

She rubs her eyes and blinks hard to clear her vision. She can’t focus like this. Her mind is racing, distracted by the clicker, the machines she’d like to build once the Faire is out of the way. The World Faire should be her utmost priority now, but she can’t bring herself to care much, not now, _three months_ to the Faire. Ridiculous. She should be more focused.  

 

Resting on his perch is her robotic owl, and Sana appraises him affectionately, remembering how it was like to build him. His blueprints are still somewhere on her drawing board, and with a fond smile, she recalls how exciting it was to power him up for the first time, all those years ago. He’d been a project that Sana had dreamed up after Chaeyoung showed her her pet parrot. Sana is notoriously bad with life forms, and so she’d decided to work with what she knew best. Steel and her anvil.

 

The owl’s eyes glow red when she snaps her fingers and recites the command sequence to wake him. Other inventors (Mina comes to mind almost immediately) prefer longer sequences that are harder to guess and execute, but Sana is happy with just one word, “ _Amadeus_.”

 

With a metallic clink, the owl’s wings unfold from his sides, and he cocks his head to the side.

 

 _What would you like me to do?_ the robotic voice intones, and the corner of Sana’s lip quirks. Her owl reminds her of how it was to be a newcomer again, determined to eke her own place out in the unforgiving landscape. The creation had cemented her place as a serious contender, and earned her the respect of veteran inventors. Now, creating a robotic owl isn’t going to cut it at the World Faire. The standards have evolved and risen, and she has to meet them.

“Get me my World Faire blueprints, thank you,” she sighs, watching as her owl flies off to do her bidding. She eyes the weather glass in the wall, the crystals swirling within, and shakes her head, reclining back in her chair again.

 

A storm is coming.

 

-

 

Sana ends up falling asleep to the sound of the rain and the omnipresent smell of grease. Hours must pass before she’s rudely awoken to the sound of a fist hammering against the door of her workshop, the sound clanging through the air. Whoever’s behind that door has plenty of strength and irritation to power her. She thinks she has an idea of who it might be.

 

“Food delivery for Minatozaki Sana!” comes a yell, and Sana chuckles, rubbing the lines on her face from where she’d fallen asleep in a vain bid to get rid of them. There’s no way she’ll be able to convince her friend that she wasn’t napping – she can lie to anyone else. Just not her.

 

The metal lock glows red-hot as she presses her palm against it before clicking open, and Sana opens the door to a very drenched Jeongyeon, with two bags of food in her hand.

 

“Took you long enough,” Jeongyeon says gruffly, cracking only the tiniest of smiles as Sana pulls her into a tight hug. She wrinkles her nose, “You smell like engine grease.”

 

“Really?” Sana retorts, ushering her into the safety of her workshop. The storm rages on outside, and she hopes that she didn’t leave Jeongyeon waiting for too long. “I haven’t been doing much recently.”

 

“You’re not doing much?” Jeongyeon raises an eyebrow, “I’m surprised.”

 

They sit on the floor, Jeongyeon pulling out packets of fragrant rice and meat wrapped in banana leaves, and Sana takes the time to increase the intensity of the hearth to warm them up. Their position on the floor is strange, but not uncommon – most of Jeongyeon’s visits come when Sana’s least prepared and has her workbenches cluttered with things.

 

Jeongyeon wouldn’t know much about mess. She’s not a career inventor like the rest of them, having become a steam-rail conductor, a job defined by order and rules. It’s a coveted and cushy job, and had taken Jeongyeon a bitter struggle to get there. She’s never home, so Sana savours her visits that much more.

 

“So,” Jeongyeon mumbles, her mouth full of food, “Tell me about what’s been going on.”

 

Sana shakes her head quickly, “No, tell me about you! Your life is much more interesting than mine. I’m in this workshop seven days a week, Jeongyeonnie, there really isn’t much variation to be had.”

 

“Hmm.” Jeongyeon narrows her eyes, but acquiesces to Sana’s request anyway, “Well, I’ve been to Carthage. It’s all very Old World – very few of the population owns automobiles, and they mostly walk to get around. Very different from what we’re used to here.”

 

“Old World,” Sana echoes, and laughs. “I was just thinking of Tzuyu and her New World nonsense.”

 

“Don’t mock what you don’t understand, Sana,” Jeongyeon says sagely, and Sana freezes for a moment, because she sounds so much like Jihyo that it’s uncanny. They haven’t seen Jihyo in ages, and Sana almost laughs out loud at the absurdity of it. Perhaps Jeongyeon is channeling her inner Jihyo. “The New World will be greater than what we can imagine.”

 

Thinking about the New World makes Sana picture savages in loincloths throwing spears at each other, and her lip curls in disdain. As far as anyone is concerned, the New World has a long way to go. The only redeeming factor about the New World is its abundance of natural resources.

 

But she isn’t here to debate about the state of the world, and so she shrugs, letting the conversation pass over her head.

 

“They have promising talents, too,” Jeongyeon remarks. “There is an inventor from there who’s made it to the World Faire.” This seems to have been the right thing to say, because Sana perks up in interest, “Name’s Im Nayeon. She’s pretty good, from what I’ve heard.”

 

She scoffs.

 

“Seriously, Sana. Who knows, she might even give you a run for your money.” Jeongyeon smirks a smirk that’s too much teeth, delighted at having gotten under Sana’s skin. Her inventor’s pride is necessary, but gets excessive – she needs to be brought down a peg sometimes. And who better than her oldest friend to do so?

 

Sana narrows her eyes, snapping her fingers. “ _Amadeus_ , please peck Jeongyeon to death.”

 

“Huh?” Jeongyeon’s realization comes too late, “No! No! I’m sorry!”

 

-

 

The intent for Jeongyeon’s visit becomes clear. Her cousin is getting married in the next city, and she wants Sana to come along with her. It so happens that the ‘next city’ is Euphrates, the site of the World Faire, and that some demonstrations by veteran inventors will be taking place. It’s enough for Sana to agree to go along with her, and in before she knows it, they’re on a steam-rail to Euphrates.

 

A part of Sana still worries over her workshop and the fact that she doesn’t know what to do for the World Faire yet, but Jeongyeon sweettalks her, telling her that she might find inspiration in the city. Euphrates, after all, is the birthplace of innovation, and being here will help Sana tremendously. She turns out to be right – Sana’s been here before, but the city charges her with a new energy. She watches birds take off from their perches, admires the architecture of this place. She would spend the whole day outdoors, people-watching, if Jeongyeon didn’t have a wedding to ferry the two of them to.

 

And so Sana is unceremoniously dumped a pile of clean clothes to wear (“ _You can’t show up smelling like your workshop”_ ) and brought to an amphitheatre for the wedding. Jeongyeon is apologetic the whole time, promising Sana that they’ll have time to explore the city after they watch her cousin be wed.

 

“I hate this,” Sana grumbles, fingers twitching in the hem of her silk blouse, “Why are they taking so long to take their vows?”

 

Jeongyeon shrugs, patting her thigh. “When I marry, my vows are going to be a second long.”

 

“What, _Yes Mina you have my heart forever and always_?”

 

The taller girl reddens – Jeongyeon is infamously prudish about her relationships, even when there is absolutely nothing to be prudish about – and Sana smirks, settling back in the hard oak chair.

  
Sana can only stand watching the bride and groom mouth sweet nothings to each other for so long before she excuses herself to the washroom, more to stretch her legs than any need to relieve herself. She makes a quick check to see that no one’s around before stretching in the most unladylike fashion possible, yawning wide and shaking like a dog when she’s done.

 

“God,” she tells herself in the mirror, “This is lame.”

 

“Yeah,” comes a voice, “It is.”

 

The toilet flushes, and a woman steps out of a stall Sana hadn’t noticed was closed. Her eyes are incredulously wide, and Sana wants to sink into the earth.

 

Sana feels her cheeks burn, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-“

 

The woman laughs raucously, throwing her head back, “No, it’s fine. I’m bored too. That’s why I’m here instead of outside”

 

Sana nods her head meekly, washing her hands quickly and trying to get out of the washroom as soon as possible. Jeongyeon is going to have a field day with this when Sana gets back – caught talking to herself in the washroom by a stranger!

 

But as fate would have it, before she can make herself scarce, the woman is squinting at her, and then Sana knows it’s too late.

 

“Hey, aren’t you Minatozaki Sana?”

 

Sana’s heart leaps into her throat. Does she still have grease stains on her? “Uh… Yes?”

 

The woman nods knowingly, “You’re an inventor, aren’t you? I’ve heard loads about you.”

 

Sana isn’t unused to people knowing of her. It stokes her ego that much more, affirms her ability as an inventor. But this woman is different. She can’t place where she might be from – definitely not from here. No inventor is pretentious enough to actually _live_ in this city, which is picturesque but unsuitable for living in. “Who’s asking?”

 

The woman laughs again, carding her hair behind her ear. She sticks her hand out, “Pleased to meet you. I’m Im Nayeon.”


	2. valentine

“No way.”

 

“Hm?” Nayeon blinks, and Sana tries to imagine the woman in front of her as an inventor. She has a certain type of person in mind when she thinks _inventor_ , and Nayeon doesn’t fit it very much. She’s lean, confident, bouncing a little as she stands, with the same type of swagger a politician might have. Sana can’t imagine a pair of welding goggles on Nayeon’s face, or her sweating from the heat of the hearth. Then again, she and Nayeon have similar physiques. They’re not too different.

 

If not for the fact that Jeongyeon seems to believe that Nayeon’s a better inventor than her. If not for that, Sana might have just let the whole thing go. But because she can’t, she opens her big fat mouth to speak.

 

“You’re attending the World Faire too?”

 

Nayeon nods eagerly, “Of course! My lab’s not too far from here, actually.”

 

“You’re from here?” Turns out there might be inventors pretentious enough to set up shop here.

 

“No. I’m from Algarve, that’s-“

 

“In the New World,” what Jeongyeon told her comes rushing back to her now, and Sana’s first instinct is to dig deeper. Her curiosity overtakes any sense of politeness she has, and she presses, “The journey must’ve taken months. Why uproot your entire life just to come here?”

 

If it’s rude, Nayeon doesn’t seem to mind, instead smiling that endearingly toothy smile she’s shown Sana twice over already. “Why not? It’s the centre of all innovation. I love it here.”

 

Sana scoffs, “You don’t really mean it.”

 

Nayeon’s amused expression wavers, and Sana sees the slightest flicker of annoyance flash in her eyes. “Look, if you’re just here to challenge me, then don’t waste your breath. I’m not here for a fight.”

 

“Yeah, well…” Sana trails off, and it’s here that she realizes she isn’t sure what to say next. She winces. She’s never been too good with lifeforms, but she knows she should apologize. The presence of another inventor, and a World Faire standard inventor at that – it’s thrilling. “I’m sorry. I just got curious. Inventor instincts, you know?”

 

The tension dissipates from Nayeon immediately, and she smiles easily. There’s something about Nayeon that unnerves Sana, and she reckons that it was the reason why she’d lashed out just now. But it would be nothing short of rude and undiplomatic to start interrogating her now, or turn her back to her, and so Sana smiles back.

 

(Nayeon smiles with too much teeth, Sana realizes later.)

 

“Say, do you want to get out of here and come to my lab?” 

 

Sending a telepathic apology Jeongyeon’s way, Sana says, “Sure!”

 

-

 

Nayeon hails a taxi for them outside the amphitheatre, and gives her address to the driver in hushed tones. She has nothing to worry about – Sana can hardly remember what she had for lunch yesterday, let alone the top-secret location of Nayeon’s lab. Though it _is_ strange that Nayeon would bring her, a total stranger, back to her lab after just having met her. Nayeon is too open, too trusting, and it is odd.

 

It must be New World manners that she isn’t used to, Sana tells herself, sitting back in the back of the automobile. She watches the Euphrates traffic pass by her wistfully, sees the men in ridiculous top hats and ladies in their large dresses and shakes her head. The people in Euphrates seem to have an affinity for dressing like they got stuck in the 18th century. It’s the nineteenth century, for goodness’ sake.

 

She looks over at Nayeon, and wonders if Nayeon is the same, if she has the same dress sense as these people. Thinking about Nayeon in a monocle and top hat makes her laugh. Thankfully, Nayeon doesn’t seem to have a flair for the dramatic. The most extravagant part of her dressing are the rings on her right hand, and even those are simple steel.

 

Nayeon catches her eye, grinning back. “Yeah?”

 

“Nothing,” Sana laughs, looking away shyly, “Just an inside joke.”

 

Nayeon hums but leaves it at that, and Sana’s eyes are drawn to her hands resting in her lap. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but Nayeon’s hands seem to have a mind of their own, drumming on her thighs and intertwining with each other before loosening up. She rolls her wrists, presses her fingers back, anything to keep herself preoccupied, and Sana realizes she might not look too out of place with a gadget in her hands.

 

She smiles at their similarities – Nayeon picks at the hem of her skirt, and is just as restless as she is. They’d both felt out of place at that wedding, and it shows in the littlest of behaviours. Maybe Nayeon would look more natural in a set of overalls and goggles. Maybe Nayeon isn’t as bad as Sana thinks she is. Bringing her to a familiar setting makes Sana trust her more.

 

“We’re here,” she announces a while later, just as Sana is about to fall asleep to the comforting bump of the wheels against pavement. They’ve pulled up to an unmarked white shed in the middle of nowhere, and Nayeon pays the driver with a stack of bills and a mysterious smile.

 

Sana takes the time to scout the place. This isn’t like any part of Euphrates that she knows, but she’s not surprised that it’s so out of the way. Most noises and smells from workshops are enough to make neighbors complain – it’s how she got kicked out of her last place. Jihyo had apologetically evicted her, in the kindest, most Jihyo manner possible, but it still sucked.

 

She wonders what Nayeon gets up to here. A part of her still doesn’t like the fact that Nayeon is so smiley, so open, because there _must_ be something that she’s hiding. She just has to find out what it is, and maybe get some ideas for the World Faire while she’s at it.

 

“Watch your step-“ Nayeon steadies her as she trips on the curb, strong hands keeping her upright. “Yeah.”

 

“Thanks,” Sana grumbles, cheeks dusted pink. “Let’s go check out your stupid lab.”

 

Nayeon smirks, but doesn’t comment further, pressing the tips of her fingers into the door. A blue beam of light washes over her hands before the door chimes, opening up the shed to the two of them. Sana isn’t sure what she expects to see. Typical workshop fare, she supposes, a raging hearth and an anvil, gears and pipes strewn about the place. Blueprints, current and old, laying around like picnic mats.

 

It’s spotless. It looks like the whole place has been wiped clean, because there’s _nothing_ here, just clean white walls and Nayeon in the middle of it all.

 

Her first instinct – Nayeon brought her here to do something unspeakable. Maybe take her out of the World Faire for good. Maybe she’s jealous of her, and knew she could never compare to her-

 

What Nayeon does next assures Sana that it isn’t the case. Nayeon snaps her fingers, and the white walls shimmer before expanding outwards, opening to reveal neatly organized compartments. Sana gets a peek of them as they open up – blueprints, rolled and tagged alphabetically and by date, spare parts, gears and pistons and levers. There’s even a cupboard of clothes, clean black blouses that look washed. It looks like a minimalist’s wet dream rather than the inventor Sana expected, and she swallows, taken aback.

 

Nayeon flexes her fingers, and a chime sounds in the air, dropping a set of blueprints onto the ground in front of her. It unfurls, pinning itself to the ground with mathematical precision (how, Sana has no idea, though she has an idea that it might be related to those rings of Nayeon’s), and Nayeon smiles at Sana, “Welcome to my workshop.”

 

It’s a blueprint for the workshop itself. Sana runs a critical eye over the blueprint, examining its working parts, the human recognition features, the way they’re controlled by the rings on Nayeon’s hand. Her heart is pounding in her ears, and she doesn’t realize how breathless she is until Nayeon pats her on the back to steady her for the second time today. She scans the plans fervently, hoping for a flaw in these plans. Maybe a part is out of place, or maybe Nayeon programmed one of these drawers incorrectly. Fat chance – it’s perfect.

 

For the first time, Sana is intimidated by another inventor’s work. She’s been awed before, sure, when veteran inventors showed off their devices and gadgets, but never threatened. Because those veteran inventors have had years to perfect their craft, and Sana could acknowledge and respect that. Because she _also_ knew that she would wipe the floor with anyone her age, and that she would eventually get to the level of the veterans, dazzling audiences daily. But here is someone who appears better than her, at the same age, with the same expertise, with the same feat of having been invited to the World Faire…

 

For the first time in her life, Sana feels _inferior_. So she reacts the only way she knows how.

 

“This lab is different.”

 

“Yeah,” Nayeon nods, “My old workshop wasn’t this nice. It was real dirty, messy, I had stuff lying around _everywhere_. Half-finished plans and the like. I hate leaving loose ends untied.“

 

Sana bristles.

 

“-believe me, it was horrible. I’m so glad I cleaned up here. I can’t imagine working in a place with so much clutter.”

 

“You don’t have a hearth?” Sana interjects, suddenly noticing the decided lack of a fireplace in the plans. Either Nayeon does her work externally – which would make no sense, seeing that this is her workshop – or she has something else hidden up her sleeve. “Where do you get all your metalwork done, then?”

 

“Here,” Nayeon replies, and shoots a blast of fire out of her hands.

 

Sana jumps a good three feet back, “What the fuck!”

 

“Sorry,” Nayeon laughs, “Should’ve warned you.”

 

Sana digs her nails into her palms, trying to ground herself, as she breathes shallowly. She knows about the fire-benders, of course. Very few people have the gift of controlling the elements, but they _do_ exist. Momo is an obvious example, with her water-bending skills making her more than fit for her dream job of a children’s pool lifeguard.

 

These people are lucky, and far apart enough that the appearance of one is almost thrilling. It seems that another one of them has come to her. And oh, by the way, she happens to be a prodigious inventor, so that’s two talents in one person. As if Sana needed any more reason to be jealous.

 

“Could I have a copy of the blueprints?” she blurts out, “I’d like to study them.”

 

This is genuine. As threatened as she feels right now, her spirit compels her to understand every bit of what she doesn’t understand. What was that saying Jihyo loves so much? _Know thy enemy._ (Jihyo’s wisdom is proving to be more useful than she thought.) She’s going to know Nayeon, alright. She’s going to know her better than she knows herself.

 

“Sure,” Nayeon shrugs, and moves to grab a spare sheet of paper.

 

“Let me guess. You have a magic copying machine to reproduce blueprints,” Sana goads, almost _daring_ Nayeon to have some cute shortcut. It would be just like her to have some device stored somewhere that could reproduce documents quickly. Which would be _ridiculous_ , because who would prefer that over sweating over a pair of blueprints with a pen…

 

“…No? I’m going to copy it out by hand?” If Nayeon had glasses, she’d push them up the bridge of her nose. “Although that’s a good idea, I might look into that-“

 

“Don’t,” Sana snaps, very protective over her magic copying machine idea, “And don’t bother with the blueprints. I don’t want them.”

 

“But you just said you did.“

 

“Well I changed my mind, so tough shit,” Sana spits, fully aware that she is being very juvenile but not caring enough to apologize for it. Nayeon looks hurt, and it’s because of Sana, but she doesn’t want to feel the remorse, not right now. Nayeon epitomizes everything that Sana isn’t – she’s even more gifted than Sana (whatever those fire tricks are), and has her ideas neatly organized and executed. She doesn’t leave loose ends untied, she gathers them up. For God’s sake, she probably has a plan for the World Faire, kept somewhere in this spotless slate of a workshop.

 

“ _Why_ are you trying to pick a fight?” Nayeon asks in disbelief, putting away the pen and paper. She seems to be glowing now, little flickers of light sparking off her, and Sana detects a faint burnt smell. Figures that a fire-bender would start losing control over her powers when she gets emotional. “I brought you in here because I was excited to show you my work. I thought maybe, as a fellow inventor, you’d _respect_ that.”

 

Sana shakes her head angrily, “No, you didn’t. You brought me here to show off.” Her fingers are twitching, nails scratching into the irritatingly scratchy fabric of her blouse, “Do you get off on this superiority complex of yours?”

 

“I do not have a superiority complex!”

 

“Do too.”

  
Nayeon yells, “Do _not_!” Her hands erupt in flames, and Sana takes a step back, but holds her ground.

 

“Do too.”

 

“Do not-“ Nayeon blinks, as if having just realized how inane this conversation is. “Get out of my workshop.”

 

Turning on her heel, Sana heads for the door. Her jaw is tight with anger, anger at Nayeon for being so prideful and herself for being so goddamn _easy._ She doesn’t bother saying any more.  

 

“Oh, and for the record,” Nayeon jabs, seemingly unable to resist a final insult, “If I had a superiority complex, it would be entirely warranted.”

  
There’s a click of Nayeon’s fingers, and then the door swings open. Sana steps out and doesn’t look back.

 

-

 

Sana throws out the first draft of her device a week later.

 

After she’d gotten back home, she’d stared at the plans, thinking about the New World and Carthage and Im Nayeon till her mind was too overcrowded to bear listening to. She’d crumpled up the plans and tossed them into the hearth, watching them crackle and sizzle under the weight of the flames. And then returned to the drawing board, her shoulders heavy and weary. She’s been working day and night ever since, frantically searching for an idea worthy to bring to the Faire.

 

Now, she finds herself staring at another dissatisfactory set of blueprints. These are a plan for a bronze attack bull, a plan she’d drawn up at the behest of the king a year ago. He’d planned for an automaton that could be mass produced and fortify their weapons armada. It’d only fulfilled one of those aims, and Sana had been dismissed from the throne room until further notice. (She never got paid for her work, and holds a grudge against the royal family to this day – not that she’d ever say it out loud.)

 

Now, she tries to improve on the bronze bull, circling weak points she’d identified and scribbling suggestions for improvement, only to cross them out a moment later in pure frustration.

 

_Get rid of horns. Grab risk._

_Overheat risk. Replace w something else._

Solid suggestions, but Sana’s heart isn’t in this stupid bull. She’d hoped that reviving an old idea might give her inspiration for the Faire, but clearly, it isn’t working. The anxiety at not having enough time to work on her World Faire device is making her panic. The more she pushes forward, the worse it gets, her focus being chipped at slowly, but she refuses to leave her workshop.

 

The result is her sipping some of Chaeyoung’s patented, bitter and concentrated Awake-Drink to minimize the time she spends asleep. She tosses dozens of sheets of paper in the process, crumpling them in frustration and hurling them halfway across her workshop. Some make it into the hearth, sizzling just like the original blueprints for the bronze bull did, and Sana derives satisfaction from the sound.

 

She takes an angry look around her workshop. It’s so unlike what she’d seen in Nayeon’s own. She likes to think that the mess adds charm to her workspace, but the more she contrasts it with Nayeon’s - the more she contrasts herself with Nayeon - the worse it looks.  

 

Her muscles feel frozen into one position from sitting down for so long, and Sana stretches languidly, lifting herself off the chair to pace around her workshop. She’s been doing a lot of that, in hopes that it will stimulate her brain into giving her an idea for the Faire.

 

Passing her blueprint board, she takes the time to examine past blueprints. A portable, smaller steam engine from last fall is the most recent thing pinned to the board, and she runs her fingers over the lines, the words scrawled in her scrambled handwriting. It’s a single wheel attached to a metal platform that secures the user’s feet, designed for transport that’s faster than walking but slower than an automobile. An easy balance. She’d shown the device at fairs spanning the length of the known Old World, packing her little device in a brown briefcase and toting it around the likes of Oceania and Timaeus.

 

Over here – a timekeeping device, which had improved on the limitations of existing devices. Jeongyeon had suggested that Sana put it on a chain and market it to the Old World peoples as a classy timepiece, but she refused. She creates for herself, to fulfil her own whims and fancies. Now, she looks over to the timepiece in question, ticking sounds quietly sounding.

 

She picks it up, running her fingers over the spokes of the gears. She could refine it now – her skills have improved tremendously over the past year, and almost immediately she spots design flaws that could be corrected with a spare hour. She is almost tempted. But then Nayeon’s face pops back into her head – stupid, stupid Nayeon – and she remembers that she has no time to spare.

 

Nayeon has been the motivator for most of her work. She stirs up feelings within Sana, and even though these feelings are less positive and more ‘extreme agitation’, it pushes her to do more. She will have to thank her later, when she wins the Grand Prize at the World Faire.

 

 _You won’t have to thank her if she wins,_ the voice in her head reminds her, and Sana groans.  

 

-

 

Jihyo comes to visit two weeks after her meeting with Nayeon, which Sana is extremely thankful for. Much like Jeongyeon, Jihyo’s visits are rare, but when she does come, she comes bearing gifts.

 

“I knew you wouldn’t appreciate fine wine, so I got you this,” Jihyo tells her, setting a rucksack of clinking metal parts on her workbench. Sana’s eyes widen comically large, and her old friend only laughs and shakes her head as Sana rummages through the rucksack with the excitement of a young child. The lines in her face disappear as she pulls the parts out, announcing the names of each one (more for her own benefit than Jihyo’s).

 

“Sprocket-wheel!”

 

“Roller chain!”

 

“Piston!”

 

“Where were you?” Sana laughs happily, having set aside the metal to gaze affectionately at Jihyo. In this moment, she looks just like how Jihyo remembers her, a carefree and driven innovator, and the worry lines on her face deepen when she realizes how far Sana has spiraled.

 

Jihyo shrugs, “Just somewhere in the New World.”

 

To this day, Sana has no idea what Jihyo does. It appears to be closely related to her own profession, but Jihyo is definitely not an inventor – if not knowing her nuts from her bolts gives it away. Her career takes her all over the world, much like Tzuyu’s, and Sana is more than content to let Jihyo regale her with stories of foreign lands.

 

They end up talking – or rather, Jihyo ends up talking while Sana stares at the nth set of blueprints today. She gives appreciative hums and grunts where she sees fit, only half-listening to Jihyo’s stories about the mystical city of Rostov and the radiation-injured people living there. (They have two eyes but three ears, Jihyo tells her, and Sana idly wonders if she could engineer a third ear implant for the fun of it.)

 

Jihyo definitely picks up on her distracted mood, “That’s enough about me. What have you been up to?”  

 

“Nothing,” and she isn’t lying, because the past weeks have felt like a dead end.

 

“Hmm.” Jihyo sounds hesitant. “I heard you met Im Nayeon.”  

 

“I don’t like her,” Sana grumbles, burying her face in her hands. Jihyo drapes her hands over her shoulders squeezing gently, and Sana melts. Jihyo always has that effect on her, subduing and flowing over her like the tide coming home to the shore, and Sana misses her sorely every moment she isn’t here. Her friends mean a lot more to her than she thinks they do, and she’s thankful that they seek her out no matter how hard she tries to isolate herself.

 

Jihyo hums again, “What did she do?”

 

Sana kicks out sulkily. “You _know_ what she did!”

  
  
“I don’t, actually. Jeongyeon didn’t tell me anything other than that you and Nayeon met at a wedding.”

 

Sana rolls her eyes. Of course Jeongyeon would use the most ambiguous phrasing possible. Their friend had only rolled her eyes when Sana came back to the inn sulky but apologetic for ditching Jeongyeon, fully aware of Sana’s distracted nature. “She brought me back to her lab and showed me around. She’s full of herself, by the way.”

 

“Any more than you are?”

 

“Jihyo,” Sana moans, “This is serious. She’s so full of herself and she’s _better than me_ , I can’t take it.”

 

Jihyo sighs, rubbing Sana gently when she keens and whines. “All you inventors are the same. You’re all so fragile. So egoistic when the situation calls for it, but you crumble too easily.”

 

“I didn’t ask for poetry,” the older girl sulks, and Jihyo laughs earnestly, wiping a smear of oil off Sana’s ear with her thumb.

 

“If you’re so bothered about her, then maybe you should meet her again, get to know her better.”

 

“Maybe,” maybe she won’t tell Jihyo the things she said to Nayeon’s face. Nayeon is almost certainly too angry at her to see her again, and the childish, scheming part of Sana wants to say _good, be that way_. She hopes Nayeon is too angry to work on her perfect inventions.

 

But that isn’t fair to either of them. Sana was the one who started it. Nayeon was only trying to be nice, and Sana took that niceness and crushed it. Hell, how many inventors would offer to copy a set of blueprints for someone else? Most inventors Sana knows are too wrapped up in themselves to care for others. Nayeon is different – and that is what makes her such a formidable opponent.

 

She exhales, “You’re right. There’s only one problem, though.”

 

“What?”

 

“I don’t know where she is.”

 

-

 

It turns out that Sana doesn’t need to look far. An inventor’s fair is being held in the city, and inventors from all over the country have been invited. City fairs usually serve as platforms for up-and-coming inventors to showcase their work, with more experienced inventors occupied with the World Faire. A cursory look at the programme informs Sana that she doesn’t know any of these people. A deeper look informs her that she does know one person.

 

 _How does she have time for this_? Sana fumes as she strolls around the perimeter of the fair. She gets recognized by a few people and nods politely, but otherwise, it’s boring. She watches a particularly unlucky man struggle to take off his steam-powered goggles in vague amusement, and entertains herself with some other booths. Some of these inventors are promising, and remind her of her younger self. It was at a city fair like this where she got her big break and the invitation to the World Faire, after all. Mina and Dahyun got their invitations the same way.

 

Still, nothing is outstanding. These inventors lack understanding of their own devices, and panic when something doesn’t go according to plan – their biggest weaknesses. Sana sees a gadget lying on the ground in a splatter of oil, gears and wires sticking out of it, and picks it up to examine it. With a few rotations of her wrist and flicks of her fingers, the device thrums, and Sana lets it whir in her hand, proud of her last-ditch engineering.

 

She’s so caught up in her own world that she doesn’t notice Nayeon clapping dryly. And when she does, she realizes that she’d subconsciously made her way to Nayeon’s booth.

 

“Good job, inventor,” Nayeon intones, still clapping, and the look in her eyes says one thing: _I’m still angry at you._

Sana nods shortly, intending to bask in the praise even if it’s sarcastic, “Thank you.”

 

Nayeon huffs, hands on her hips. She looks a lot more inventor-like now than she was in her wedding garb, with a grease-stained shirt and a pair of pants with scorch marks in them. Probably fired a blast of that flame into her thighs. There are welding goggles around her neck, but she looks like she hasn’t grown into them properly, eyes wide and cheeks rosy.

 

“Why are you here, Sana?”

 

“To see my favourite inventor, of course,” Sana bites back, before shaking her head. This isn’t what she came for. “I came here to apologize.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Yes.” Sana steps closer, and is suddenly aware of how close she and Nayeon are standing. The crowd wraps around them. There’s no one at Nayeon’s booth right now, which is strange, because Sana could’ve sworn that a moment ago dozens of people were asking Nayeon questions about her machine. People seem to just be walking through them instead of past them. “I was immature and rude when I visited your lab. I’m sorry.”

 

She falls silent, and for once, there isn’t a hint of a mocking smile on Nayeon’s face. She must not have expected something so earnest, and Sana grins internally. Anything to keep Nayeon on her toes, even if it is a very polite apology.

 

They’re too close. Is there a ‘too close’? Does Nayeon always do this sparking thing when she gets agitated? Little sparks of flame split off her hands and face. It looks like glitter. It’s all very attractive. Sana can only wonder what she’s feeling now. Maybe she’s still angry, and that’s why she’s sparking.

 

“Well,” Nayeon starts, and that burning smell gets stronger. Nayeon’s glowing so bright she might outshine the sunlight glinting off all the metal here. “Apology accepted. I-”

 

“I’m not done yet,” Sana says sheepishly, looking away as her ears burn. She moves closer, and Nayeon reddens noticeably, trying to backstep. There’s no more space to backpedal into, though, and so Sana practically has Nayeon braced against a barrier. “You’re a really good inventor, and I admire you. I wanted to wish you good luck for the Faire. I’m looking forward to see what you’ll present.”

 

“Sana.”

 

“I guess I spoke out of turn because I was threatened by you. I saw you as an enemy instead of a friend, but we should inventors should band together.”

 

“Sana.”

 

“I should’ve been more mature. I’m sorry.”

 

“Sana, your pants are on fire,” Nayeon says nervously, her hands smoldering, and Sana looks down and screams.


	3. youngblood

“Don’t look!”

 

“I’m  _sorry_ ,” Nayeon groans, face in her hands. They’re standing back-to-back in a public lavatory stall, with Nayeon insisting on lending her an unburnt pair of pants to wear. Unfortunately, Nayeon doesn’t travel with a portable drawer of clothes like the famously vain Kim Yerim does, and so she decided to give Sana her own pair.

 

In hindsight, she is lucky that they’re similar sizes.

 

Sana finishes buckling the loose pair of trousers, “You can look now.”

 

“I’d rather not,” Nayeon tosses back, and unlocks the door, metal rings glittering in the dim light of the lavatory. Miraculously, the fire had burnt through the top layer of fabric but missed Sana’s flesh before being snuffed out, which was good news for Sana but embarrassing nonetheless. Nayeon seems to sport the swapped pair of pants like a fashion statement, in her own easy, languid way. Sana suppresses a laugh at that – as if holes in pants would ever have a place in fashion!

 

“You  _did_ just burn a hole in my pants, you know.”

 

Nayeon pouts, “How long are you going to hold it over my head?”

 

Sana laughs at that, because she doesn’t really care about the pants. Being with Nayeon is refreshing on its own, and she likes teasing her, pulling and pushing to get reactions out of her. Much like a young boy with a crush might do to a girl he likes. She doesn’t have a crush, though. It’s just entertaining to tease Nayeon.

 

They return to the fair, Nayeon now sporting a scorched pair of trousers, and she says, “I’ll have to make it up to you.”

  
“What? No, it’s fine. Take this as us being even.” With a nervous laugh, Sana waves at the passing visitors who give them odd looks. They’re standing too close again, and it finally seems like the rest of the world is paying them attention. “I was rude to you, and you burnt my pants off. We’re even now.”

 

“I wouldn’t say I burned them off,” Nayeon muses, but the easy grin on her face tells Sana that she’s happy with what she said. “Fine. Deal. We’re even.”

 

“Great.” Sana can breathe a little easier now.

 

Nayeon nods. “I’ll just get out of your way then, and we won’t have to keep getting in each other’s business.”  

 

“No,” Sana blurts out. She flushes a deep red immediately after speaking, “I didn’t mean it that way. I just- I want to see you again.“ 

 

Nayeon raises her eyebrows.

 

She’s proved to have just as feisty of a personality as Sana, and Sana’s own words come back to haunt her – that they really aren’t that different. Now, she stands her ground, indignant and insistent on proving her point to the other inventor. Her fingers are twitching again. “Did you mean what you said just now?”

 

“Yeah, of course.”

 

“Okay.” Nayeon takes a deep breath. “I want to keep seeing you, too.”  

 

_Let’s not leave anything else unsaid._

“I guess I could do with some new friends,” Sana smirks, “Do you want to see my lab?”

 

-

 

“I was wrong about you,” Sana admits. They’re settled into her lab, on the same floor where Sana and Jeongyeon had lunch the other day, because Sana hasn’t gotten around to clearing her workspace. Nayeon had been very vocal about her disapproval of the cleanliness of the place.

 

(“Jeez, how old is this?” Nayeon holds up a ball of crumpled metal. It’s not just any metal – it’s Chrysaor bronze, an alloy that’s extremely hard to find, and Nayeon seems to know this. “The last time this was available was like, fifteen years ago.”

 

“You know your history,” Sana muses, trying to recall what she had used the bronze for. “It was a prototype for a shield.”

 

“It didn’t pass regulations?”

 

Sana gasps, scandalized at Nayeon’s very suggestion. “It was an excellent piece of armor. They refused to use it because it would call into question our kingdom’s capabilities, and compromise national security.” The talks with the Royal Armory had been long and grueling, and not something Sana wants to go through again, which had led to her eventual promise to stop being a war dog, or pursue advancements in the realm of war and battle.

 

It is simply Sana’s nature. She never intends to sow chaos, but a primal part of her drives her towards it, makes her want to explore every nook and cranny until she is satisfied. War does serves that purpose the best.)

 

Nayeon’s eyes light up, “I knew it. You didn’t expect me to be this beautiful. You’d only heard about my beauty in legends, but never imagined-“

 

“No,” Sana rolls her eyes. Every time she thinks Nayeon’s reached the peak of her ego, she surpasses expectations. “I didn’t think you were an inventor.”

 

 _And especially not a good one_ , she thinks, recalling how she’d denounced Nayeon’s look back in their first encounter in Euphrates.

 

“Oh. I get that a lot.”

 

“Hey, think fast.” Without warning, she chucks the timepiece in her hands at Nayeon. Nayeon’s eyes widen in alarm before almost falling backwards to grab it out of the air, and Sana bursts out laughing.

 

“What was that for?” Nayeon grumbles, wiping her hands on her pants. “If you wanted me to look at your stuff so badly you could’ve just asked.”

 

“Ha-ha, very funny. I’m not  _that_ starved for attention.”

 

Nayeon makes a non-committal sound in her throat and lowers her head to look at the timepiece properly, and Sana does some observing of her own. Which is mostly admiring the focused expression on Nayeon’s face, because she’s is a lot prettier than Sana is equipped to deal with. Almost enough to get her mind off the stupid Faire for a while.

 

The Faire hovers at the back of her mind like a curse, keeping her from truly enjoying the moment. Being in her workshop only exacerbates it. She’s at such a dead end it isn’t even funny.

 

Her thoughts are interrupted by a reverent breath from Nayeon, “The workmanship on this is incredible.”

 

It sounds so genuine that Sana is startled out of her reverie, and she looks up to see Nayeon’s eyes shining. The other girl twirls the timepiece in her hands, marveling at the look of it, “This is amazing. Practically World Faire standard. The gears jut out a little here, but-“

 

“-but that can be easily fixed with a redesign,” Sana breathes, her heart pounding in her ears. “I said the same thing.”

 

“Great minds think alike,” Nayeon laughs, handing her back the timepiece.

 

“There is one thing, though. It’s not World Faire quality.”

 

Nayeon cocks her head, “You’re harsh on yourself.”

 

“It’s important to be,” Sana replies, cursing herself when she realizes it’s  _another_ one of Jihyo’s sayings, offered to her after a veteran inventor disparaged her creation in front of an audience. Sana had bitterly cursed his name, but realized later that it would be absolutely satisfying to grow from it and crush him.  

 

“I’m guessing whatever you have for the World Faire is much better.”

 

“Ah-ha,” Sana holds up a finger, smiling bitterly, “Except that I have nothing.”

 

And then – for some reason she can’t comprehend, because she’s tired of walking around and around in her own mind with no end in sight – she tells Nayeon everything. About how she’s stuck, how she will almost certainly show up to the World Faire, the most prestigious festival for inventors in the world, with nothing to show for herself. It is almost cathartic, and pressure swells in her chest as she speaks.

 

Nayeon only listens, never interrupting, before asking, “Do you still plan to attend?”

 

“Of course,” she stammers, “I have to.”

 

“Then I guess you  _have to_ think of something,” Nayeon says neutrally. “What’s gotten you hung up, anyway?”

 

Sana shrugs, standing up and crossing the room to her desk. Weeks, months of work are splayed out here to the casual observer, but Sana knows it goes deeper than that. Etched in the desk itself are stories too intimate to tell, years and years of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears that brought her to where she is today.

 

It was what seems like a long time ago - a year ago at the Festival of Arvand Rud, where she first got her invite – when she first got her lucky break. Things were supposed to be easy from then on. It would be even easier for her to work, with both money and talent on her side. Things were supposed to be better.

 

But they’re not, and she can’t figure out why she’s hit this dead end. Like Tantalus’ cup, she drained when she hit her peak, and now she’s stuck with nothing.

 

That’s not entirely true. She has something. She has expectations to meet, bestowed upon her by the people in her life. The audiences who’d flocked to see her exhibitions. Her own friends. Even fellow inventors –  _especially_ fellow inventors. They expect the most, because they know the fullest extent of what Sana is capable of. If she brings something of sub-par quality to the World Faire, it will not be the public, or her supportive friends who admonish her for disrespecting the institution, but fellow inventors who disparage her, who will bring her world crashing down on her. People like Nayeon. It is just a matter of time. They have all expectations, and Sana has to meet them or lose out.

 

Now – what does Nayeon expect from her?

 

“I just want to be free,” she admits, finally. “Free of expectations. I guess it comes with the territory, but I want to escape.”

 

Nayeon steps up behind her. Sana can practically feel the heat emanating from the girl, and it’s not just her fire-bending powers this time.

 

For a moment, she thinks of doing the unthinkable. She could just pull Nayeon close, fold up and seal the tension that’s been brimming between them this entire time. They haven’t known each other for a month, but she doesn’t care. This is different. Nayeon is something else entirely. 

 

She can only hope she feels the same way.  

 

“Maybe you can.”

 

“Ridiculous,” Sana snorts, “What can I do? Just lift off and-“

 

There it is.

 

“…Sana?”

 

“Nayeon, with all due respect,” Sana whispers hoarsely, grabbing a pen, “Could you leave?”

 

Nayeon smirks, coming close and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “See you soon.”

 

-

 

Okay, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to shoo Nayeon out so suddenly, because it had triggered an intense sequence of events that Sana couldn’t quite keep up with. Nayeon had looked sufficiently amused just now, but Sana had been sure to apologise profusely to her for it, and had promised to make it up to her. (Whatever that means.) As a show of friendship, Nayeon even wrote down a series of numbers on Sana’s wrist, telling her to contact her if she found the time.

 

And then Nayeon had  _kissed_  her, and yes, it was chaste enough and was on her  _cheek_ , not like it was her mouth, she’s not a prude for goodness’ sake, and are Nayeon and her on that level of friendship right now? She’s not even sure she’s been kissed by the likes of Jeongyeon, or Jihyo, or any one of the people in her friend group. She’s done the kissing, sure, always been the one to start it. Is this what her friends feel all the time?

 

( _Level of friendship?_ her inner monologue scoffs,  _Come on, you know it’s more than that_.)

She supposes this means she can blame Nayeon for keeping her distracted. It doesn’t last, though. Soon her pen is flying across the papers, sketching and outlining what she knows is going to end up being her submission to the World Faire.

 

No. Not just that. It’s going to be her submission to the World Faire, and the symbol of her growth as an inventor, and her meal ticket into the Hall of Fame. If she pulls this off, she’ll be revered for centuries to come, and remembered eternally. For putting man where he aspired to be. For striking down the voices who said they couldn’t do it. This is something bigger than herself, and the excitement drives her insane.

 

Minatozaki Sana, the inventor of the first  _flying machine_.

 

She likes the sound of that very much.

 

( _You sure this isn’t another weapon?_ the voice asks cautiously, and Sana tells it to shut up.)

 

-

 

The next few days are a blur. Or maybe not, because days suggest that Sana is actually aware of time passing. She only realizes that four days have passed when she looks at her timepiece, one of its five ticking hands having moved from the 12th to the 16th spoke. (She remembers the tremor of her hands as she measured the distances between each of the individual three hundred and thirty-six spokes, one for each day on a leap year, and how they would adjust when one spoke was retracted for a non-leap year. It had taken her a week and nine doses of the Awake-Drink to complete the task.)

 

She doesn’t have much time to the World Faire – only slightly more than two months, and even that time has been shortened by Nayeon’s arrival into her life. She will have to work quickly. She finishes the first set of designs in these four days, outlining features she wishes to see on her machine and building the engine it will run on.

 

A simple steam engine will not do. She extracts the steam engine from an old device to power the prototype model, and quickly realizes that it wouldn’t carry her off the ground if she tried. Thus, the next few days are consumed with her trying to find an alternative. Despite this, she savours the challenge.

 

She only leaves her workshop to source for materials and tools, and never to eat or for leisure. Meals come in the form of reheated military rations she’d gotten as a gift during her talks with the Royal Armory all those years ago (they’ve kept for years, and Sana tries not to think about what’s inside), and her  _leisure_ is sitting on the floor and thinking about what she’ll tell Nayeon the next time she sees her. Those thirty seconds of fun are all she affords herself. She’s sure Nayeon would do the same.

 

Jeongyeon and Jihyo are both overseas doing their jobs, which means it falls to Momo and Tzuyu to drop by her lab. (They have a visiting rotation, you see to make sure that all the inventors in their friend group aren’t deprived of human interaction for more than a week at a time.) As it happens, Momo happens to fall sick with a bad case of mono after visiting Mina’s workshop, and is out of commission. Tzuyu only visits once, giving Sana some strongly worded advice not to hurt herself before she departs for Chaeyoung’s lab in the next city. Sana understands, and doesn’t really mind that she’ll be left alone. She’s having enough trouble concentrating with one girl in her life.

 

Tzuyu filled her in about their friend group’s whereabouts – Momo is now a lifeguard for an upper-caste bathhouse, Mina is still managing to keep a proper sleep schedule despite working towards the World Faire, Dahyun is not, and Chaeyoung is coming up with an even more potent Awake-Drink. She’s thankful for the updates, but she kind of wishes someone would visit Nayeon and tell her how she was doing. It’s maddening not having any way to contact her but that number on her wrist.

 

She looks to her wrist. The numbers are blurry and smudged from days of work, but she remembers it exactly as Nayeon had wrote it. It’s foolish, though, to miss her this much, and Sana feels exactly like a lovestruck teenage boy.

 

_I want to see you again._

 

She tries to block it out, and makes admirable progress in doing so. A second round of designs is finalized, and Sana gets to work on creating the hull of her machine.

 

The flying machine will consist of two parts – the operator’s seat, which is attached to the engine, and the wings. The wings were modelled after a swallow’s wings, and are supposed to be able to keep the device aloft. She intends to craft them out of junk metal for the prototype, and then switch to an alloy of aluminum if everything holds up – the low density of the metal will do good in making the entire structure more air-friendly.

 

There’s another issue that pops up – after the machine is airborne, it must  _stay_ airborne, or it will crash and almost definitely injure the operator in a grisly manner. That’s where the engine comes into play. Hopefully, the wings and initial push will give the structure enough leverage to work with.

 

The fire crackles in the background, soothing her spirit, and Sana sits back in her chair. Her eyes are bleary, but a fierce determination burns within her. With newfound purpose, she pulls her welding goggles onto her face, and gets to work.

 

-

 

She does call the number once, keying the digits into her telephone and waiting patiently for the operator to connect her to Euphrates. It takes a few minutes, because the telephone service is relatively new (she was surprised Nayeon even had a telephone, but the inventor has surprised her many times over), and ultimately ends in the line going unanswered.

 

Sana tries to swallow her disappointment. She tells herself that Nayeon is busy preparing for the World Faire, and has no time to entertain her, no matter how much she likes her. But she  _kissed_ her, and left her with more questions than answers. Sana deserves at least another conversation with her.

 

Perhaps it’s for the best that Nayeon doesn’t pick up. What would Sana even say? She rehearses words and sentences in her head, but none of them seem to roll off her tongue the right way. She traces them on the skin of her thighs, sighing when she eventually realizes that she should give up.

 

_It seems that being apart from you has made me miss you even more._

 

-

 

Her peace is short-lived, and interrupted by a series of rapid knocks on the door. Sana groans, “Tzuyu, if that’s you-“

 

“ _Open up!_ ” comes the gruff voice behind the door, and Sana’s heart sinks into her stomach. She looks through the peeping-hole, but the person behind it has obscured it with their palm. This can’t be good. She scurries off into the depths of her workshop to grab the heaviest thing she can find. Which, ironically, happens to be the timepiece. Holding it in her hand like a sword, she stands by the door.

 

“We’re here under orders from the King,” the voice booms, and any hope she had of peaceful confrontation disappears. She is reminded of what had gone down all those years ago, and looks to the half-built prototype, gleaming and greasy, in the middle of her workshop. She can’t let them seize something she built again. She decided she was done with that life, and they can’t come back and make her change that resolve.

 

She hurries to hide her blueprints, and the person on the other side has evidently had enough of her silence, because they boom, “Let us in before we break down this door!”

 

“I’m coming,” she squeaks, unlocking the door with shaking hands, trying her best to ignore the ticking coming from the timepiece clutched so tightly in her hand. She comes face to face with the sneering head of the Royal Armory, and bows. Her cruel face has not changed in the years Sana hasn’t seen her. The lines etched into her face, the scar carved into the space beneath her left eye - everything is the same.

 

Sana can hear nothing but her heartbeat in her ears.

 

“My lord, to what do I owe this visit?”

 

“I hear you’ve been consorting with someone from the New World,” the woman purrs. “I’d like to hear more about it.”

 

“My lord-“

 

There is no point in trying to speak, because words will not leave her mouth no matter how hard she tries. There is a prick in her neck, and she collapses.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on twitter @toastboxnayeon


End file.
